When work began on the technology behind the Celios G200 Air Purifier six years ago, a coronavirus pandemic was far from the inventors' minds. Their development of a new air purification system was fueled by a desire to capture the smallest particles in existence — viruses, yes, but also ash particles that hover in the air after wildfires and smog particles from nearby factories.
Those particles are particularly dangerous because they penetrate the lungs, through the alveoli and into the bloodstream. The smaller the particles, the longer they take to collectively dissipate, and the farther they can travel.
"We didn't develop this technology because of Covid," said Brian Packard, CEO of Wakefield-based Celios, the three-year-old startup formed to commercialize the new air purifiers. "We were invented to capture the smallest particles. We capture more small particles than any air purifier on the market."
The gold standard of air purification so far is HEPA filters, or high-efficiency particulate air filters, which remove at least 99.97 percent of airborne particles with a size of 300 nanometers.
Celios, whose name is derived from a Latin word meaning "air of the heavens," sells a filter that the company claims captures 99.99 percent of particles down to 10 nanometers. SARS-CoV-2, the scientific name for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, is about 100 nanometers across — too small for traditional HEPA filters to capture, but well within the bounds of Celios' abilities.
"SARS-CoV-2, in an aerosolized format, looks like a softball to us," Packard said.
Celios has consequently seen an explosion in B2B business in the last 12 months. The startup focuses entirely on the commercial and health care sectors, with a particular focus on anywhere the risk of viral transmission is especially high. School nurses' offices, dormitories, hotel rooms, doctors' exam rooms and yoga studios are among the customers. Packard said local school districts, including the North Andover Public Schools in Packard's hometown, have recently become clients.
Celios is also finding a new niche in the hospitality industry. Initially, Packard said he figured hotel managers would be interested in placing air purifiers in common spaces to put guests' minds at ease. Instead, they are purchasing the machines for their cleaning staff, who place them in recently vacated rooms, turn the purifier on its highest setting, let it run for about 45 minutes and then come back to fully clean the room.
With the new business, Celios has been able to double its size in the last year, to about a dozen full-time employees. The startup has also taken in funding — although Packard declined to disclose the amount — from angel investors and family offices, and Celios recently inked a partnership with SoClean to launch the SoClean Air Purifier for the consumer market.
"It’s been really both amazing and, in a way, gratifying to be able to have a solution, a small part of a multifaceted solution for Covid-19 — but amazing in sort of an overwhelming way," Packard said. "All of us, I think, we’ve been utterly shocked at the rate of acceleration of this pandemic, and those of us in the air purifier world try to look at our role as humbly as we can and deploy our solutions where we can help most cost-effectively."
Packard said Celios will look to double its size again in the "next few years," mostly in Wakefield but also at its R&D facility in Winston-Salem, N.C. He expects that the pandemic has brought a new awareness, both for everyday consumers and corporate clients, of maintaining a healthy environment that includes healthy air — and that awareness is here to stay.
"The air is filled with nasty threats. That doesn't go away when Covid goes away," Packard said. "We always filtered our water and never thought twice about it. Now, everybody thinks about, 'Wherever I go, I have to be breathing clean air.'"
